by Sarah Warfield
Contributing Editor
Earlham has been seeing orange during
the past few weeks as the Fair Wage
Campaign -- a concerned group of
students, faculty and staff -- has been
busy spreading its message through an
extensive campaign of bright flyers and
circulating petitions.
The message, according to the Fair Wage
Report made public on Feb. 16, is "to
examine what it would mean for Earlham
College to adopt a fair wage policy for
any and all employees who are employed
directly or indirectly by the college."
The campaign defines a fair wage policy
as having two components: a living wage
and yearly raises that adequately reward
seniority.
According to the report, a living wage for
Richmond is a starting rate of $9 per hour
for clerical, housekeeping, custodian, and
maintenance staffs.
Earlham senior Esly Caldwell III, one of
the campaign's more vocal members,
would like to see the fair wage issue
become a priority for the community.
"This is not an original issue," Caldwell
said. "Economic inequality is one of the
most serious issues facing our nation right
now. We think that Earlham should step
up to the plate in addressing this issue."
It will not be easy for the Earlham
administration to address an issue that
Caldwell and other members of the
campaign admit is based solely on a
moral premise.
According to Caldwell, the campaign has
yet to determine how a shift in funds
toward a higher wage for Earlham faculty
would affect the current operating budget.
Organizers have held open meetings and
conversed with Earlham College
President Doug Bennett and members of
Earlham Student Government.
"They raise an array of questions,"
Bennett said in a recent interview.
"It is a complicated and large set of
suggestions they are making."
Bennett said that he is always open to
hearing concerns brought up by members
of the community.
In fact, Bennett plays a very important
part in the Earlham governance process --
it is the college president who makes
recommendations to the Board of
Trustees, who eventually decide large
policy changes for the school.
"I am never surprised as president to find
that anybody who's got a large idea finds
their way into [my] office," Bennett said.
"My first job is to help them understand
the process we should use in considering
the idea."
According to Bennett, this recent debate
within the community is applicable to his
two favorite questions, "whose decision
is it to make, and as a consequence of
what process?"
Earlham already has a hefty list of
financial priorities aimed at the
administration's over-arching goal of
reaching financial equilibrium -- coming
out of the current deficit while keeping
the cost of education accessible to
families, and working on retention and
recruitment towards the 1,200 mark.
According to Bennett, the financial
priorities of Earlham, which have already
been committed, include programs such
as financial aid, the completed Athletics
and Wellness Center, the new
interdisciplinary/social sciences
building, the science facilities
enhancement project, and diversity on
campus.
The fair wage campaign includes in its
report a recommendation for an
investigative committee that would
"scrutinize" the budget, working with
members of the Earlham Budget and
Welfare committees, in order to release a
report by April of this year.
According to the campaign, this
timeframe is important because the next
Board of Trustees meeting is held in
June.
Currently, the campaign claims to have
the support of over 500 members of the
community who have signed the petition.
"The majority of the [Earlham] student
body supports the issue of fair wages in
principle," Caldwell said.
The next step in the governance process
for the campaign is to send the proposal
through the Budget and Welfare
Committees, who were scheduled to meet
with campaign members this week.
The Earlham Fair Wage Campaign has a
Web site, www.earlham.edu/~fairwage,
on which they have posted the Fair Wage
Report and other information concerning
the issues it raises.